Thanks to everyone! Your understanding and support are wonderful.
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My problem yesterday was that I was off my guard. I didn't think of the movies as a danger zone.
Some environments and activities, we know they're trouble. Say, shopping at Meijer's -- you could not pay me enough to do grocery shopping with E.S. in tow. (Believe me -- I've tried it before and it's just not worth the mental and emotional anguish.) So we either just don't take him to those, or we're mentally prepared for the Stop-Drop-&-Roll treatment (which in this case means, Stop what you're doing, Drop everything, and Roll on out of there).
But he's gone to countless movies over the past 3 years, and never had a problem before.
Talking it over, D.H. and I think we made several errors in judgment.
(1) We were a little worried about going to a new Pixar movie on opening weekend. In retrospect, we should have listened to that little worry. The theatre was more crowded than they usually are when we go.
(2) We should have picked a row where there was no one in front of us, to be bothered by E.S. fidgets.
(3) One of us should have taken E.S. in hand, quietly, the first time the Guy turned around. We shouldn't have assumed that E.S. would respond appropriately to the Guy's request.
(4) We should have had a little "review" of consideration-for-other-movie-goers ground rules, before we went in. It would have benefited all the kids, really. Often when we go to a public place like this, it helps a lot to have a little chat ahead of time about expected behavior and consequences for misbehavior.
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I think that normally movies aren't a problem for Eldest Son b/c he gets so engrossed in the screen world. I think the problem here stemmed from the fact that the Guy jolted him out of that world with his first request to stop the kicking. Up to that point, I'm quite sure E.S. was not even aware of his swinging legs, or that his feet would bother the Guy.
All of a sudden, he's jolted out of the movie world and criticized for something he didn't even know he was doing. Yes, the Guy was calm-but-firm, polite. I'm still not saying the Guy did anything wrong.
Doesn't matter; E.S. would see it as criticism and suddenly get all anxious and defensive. He was already excited about going to the movie, and whether the excitement is good or bad, they both pile up inside him until he blows his stack.
The rigidity of Asperger's: The harder you push Eldest Son, the harder he digs in his heels. But, faced with an apparently defiant child, an adult's instinct is to push harder, to insist even more firmly that the kid toe the line. But, the harder you push E.S., the harder he digs in his heels. And the harder you want to push him to obey. And the harder he digs in his heels. And...
So when the Guy asked him AGAIN to stop kicking, E.S. dug in his heels harder. And then when D.H. said to him sternly about how he had to move, or leave, he dug in his heels even harder still.
And, because he hadn't MEANT to do any of it and he was now getting worried and anxious about having to leave the movie which he didn't want to miss... BOOM! He couldn't contain his internal pressure, and started howling. Which, of course, led exactly TO the thing he was most afraid of, being taken out and having to miss the rest of it.
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The problem with E.S. is, at the moment when his behavior is the most annoying to those around him, that's when he most needs them to be patient and keep their cool with him. When adults get angry at him, that makes it harder for him to get back on track.
Other kids, you use "The Voice" or give "The Look" that says, "You're treading on thin ice, buster, and you'd better shape up" -- maybe it works. They back down. They bow to the adult's authority and want to avoid making an adult angry with them. They do shape up.
With E.S., it backfires. Believe me. It's the Negative Spiral of Doom, and I've experienced it myself countless times. Even though I KNOW this, sometimes I still can't help getting sucked in.
Signs of adult anger make him anxious. When he gets more anxious, he gets more rigid and obsessive and perseverative. When he gets rigid and obsessive and perseverative, he CAN'T let go of whatever it is. He really, truly CAN'T. No matter how irrational it may be. ("I can't SEE as well from there!" -- 3 seats to the left) You've got to break him out of that negative loop, and you can't do that with an angry voice, because an angry voice just adds to his anxiety, and that just makes him more rigid and obsessive and perseverative, and even LESS able to let go of it, and...
The Negative Spiral of Doom.
The harder you push, the harder he digs in his heels.
What it's kind of like is, well, it's kind of like Windows crashing.
"A Fatal Error Has Been Detected."
Only thing left is to reboot.
With E.S., rebooting requires being removed from the situation.
So, D.H. stepped up and did it.
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Last night as he was getting ready for bed, E.S. asked me to tell him what happened in the rest of the movie (which made me want to cry again).
So I think one of us is going to take him back to try again. Probably D.H., since he missed it too. Just the two of them. When Eldest Son is one on one with an adult, he's much more easy to manage. Plus, we'll keep in mind our 4 lessons learned (above).
Tomorrow we have a big meeting at his school to go over his IEP (Individual Education Plan). This will be a help going into next year. Although, this year's teacher has really been pretty awesome. But we want be sure we capture whatever her magic pixie dust is, and hand it off to next year's teacher. In a bottle with a nice little bow on it.
Phew.
Okay. 'Nuff about this. Let's move on.
Don't ask me why; the kid's been to plenty of movies in theatres before and never had a problem.
Yes, he took all his meds today just fine.
But, just got back from an "Asperger's moment" at a showing of the new Pixar movie "Up," and it's still upsetting me.
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Eldest Son was wiggling. He can't help it; he's fidgety. Apparently he kicked the seat of the guy in front of him; apparently he did it enough to bug the guy. Guy's a grown-up, a dad; his own wife and girl are there too. Daughter seems about the age of Eldest Son.
Guy turns around and says to Eldest Son, politely, "Will you please stop kicking my seat?" And we all think that's the end of it.
('Course not!)
5 minutes later, Guy turns around and says AGAIN to Eldest Son, "Will you PLEASE stop kicking my seat??"
D.H. intervenes, saying strictly to E.S., "You need to move, or else you're leaving."
E.S. goes rigid in his seat and starts to ask loudly, "Why do I have to move?"
I try to play peacemaker, saying, "Just come over here with me" (to where there isn't anyone in front of us) "I'll move too."
E.S.: "NO! I can't SEE as well from there!" (3 seats to the left.)
D.H. (to me): "He has to move, or else he's leaving."
E.S. (bursting into loud, shocking, sobs): "NO! Why do I have to move? I didn't do it!"
But I get him to move. I sit down with him, 3 seats over.
Crisis averted?
Heavens no!
E.S. cannot stop sobbing. Loud, heart-rending sobs. I hiss, "E.S., you HAVE to be quiet, or you will have to leave!"
E.S. (loudly, sobbing): "I WILL be quiet, if you'll just tell me why I had to move!"
Me, whispering: "I'll tell you afterwards, but you need to be quiet, RIGHT NOW!"
E.S. (sobbing): "I CAN'T!"
(It's true, when he gets like this, he can't.)
Me: "Just try! Please! I don't want you to have to--"
Mom from row in front of me gets in my face: "I know he's upset, but my daughters can't hear the movie, and--"
Me: "I understand, but my son has Asperger's, and--"
Other Mom: "I understand, but my daughters--"
D.H. (from further down the row): "He has to leave, now!"
D.H. grabs E.S. and hustles him out.
I slink over to sit between my two normal ("neurotypical" or NT) children for the rest of the movie, weeping -- silently.
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What do you do when you have an eight-year-old who looks like a ten-year-old and talks like a twelve-year-old -- and can't manage himself in a movie theatre as well as his four-year-old brother?
Did the guy in front of us have the right to watch a movie without having his seat kicked? Yes, of course.
Did the mom in front of us have the right for her daughers to watch the movie without being disturbed by my son's howls? Yes, of course.
Did someone have to remove E.S. from the situation until he could calm down? Yes, of course -- and since I didn't do it when it became necessary, D.H. had to.
Was there some way we could have handled the situation so that my eight-year-old child could have seen the rest of the movie just like all the other kids?
What should we have done differently?
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Guy no doubt left the theatre thinking he was in the right, thinking, or perhaps even saying out loud to his fam, "Can you believe that mom wouldn't take that rotten kid out of the movie theatre?"
Guy and Mom in Front of Me were probably congratulating themselves on the calm-but-firm way they stood up for their rights to that over-indulgent mama who was letting her kid get away with murder.
Other parents probably were thinking, "How dare that noisy brat ruin the movie for the rest of us!"
Other parents may have said to their kids later, "No kid of mine's ever gonna behave that way!" (I have had one boy innocently report to me that his parents said that to him, concerning Eldest Son's behavior.)
And they're probably right, none of their kids WILL behave that way, and lucky for them. But instead of patting themselves on the back for what good parents they are, in reality, they need to realize it's because their kids are NT. After all, my NT kids did fine, too.
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Agreed -- Eldest Son had to leave the theatre, at the point where he couldn't keep quiet. I KNOW that when he crosses that line, he really, truly CAN'T help it -- and I should have let D.H. take him out in the first place, before he started howling. Maybe he could have gotten it together in the lobby and come back in.
If an epileptic kid went into seizures in the theatre, they'd take him out -- he can't help it.
If a diabetic kid got low-blood-sugar-y and started to convulse, they'd take him out -- he can't help it.
I should have taken E.S. out myself. I should have let D.H. take him out.
But I didn't want him to miss the movie, either.
I really, really wanted for him to just move to another seat and calm down, and watch the rest of the movie.
He was almost there -- I truly do BELIEVE he was almost there -- when Mom in Front of Me had to stand up for her daughters' rights. (Can I blame her, really? If all my kids were NT, wouldn't I do the same?) But then it was Game Over.
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So, everybody -- can you please have a little more compassion if you see something similar happening?
Do you really believe that a kid that big would behave in such a way as to have to leave a movie he really wanted to see -- if he could help it?
Do you really believe that a parent who cared enough to take all her kids to a movie like that would allow him to behave that way if there weren't extenuating circumstances?
Remember, we paid money for the tickets, too. And 2 of our 5 family members missed half the movie.
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This is our life. Always on edge, never sure when or where, exactly, the explosion will occur -- just knowing that sooner or later, it will. And, when it does, neither we as parents nor our child will be viewed with compassion by those around us, but rather, will be judged. And judged harshly. Will be blamed.
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Dear fellow movie-goers: Y'all had to put up with a couple of minutes of it in the movie theatre, then D.H. obligingly removed the problem from your midst.
We live it.
We eat, sleep, and breathe it. Literally.
Every meal we eat as a family is influenced by Eldest Son's rigidity, his obsessiveness, his socially inappropriate outbursts. Every evening is shaped by his inability to turn off his restless mind and just go to sleep -- like our NT kids do. Every picnic, every party, every school play, every play date (not that there are many of those), every visit to a playground, every family get-together -- we live it.
Waiting for the explosion that, sooner or later, WILL come. We cannot escape it.
Eldest Son lives it too.
Everyone's always mad at him. He's always getting hauled off from one thing or another because of his outbursts.
Do you think he likes that? Do you think that's fun for him?
He lives it too. He can't escape it either.
It's in his head. It's who he is. He can't escape it either.
And doesn't he have rights too?
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So what SHOULD we have done differently? So that Guy's rights and Mom in Front of Me's daughters' rights, AND Eldest Son's rights could have happily coexisted?
Should have hauled him out sooner -- check. But then that might have precipitated the very explosion we were trying to avoid. (Believe me, that's a frequent occurrence.)
Should we have him wear a scarlet A on his head, and explain to everyone around us exactly what it means to be a kid with Asperger's? Or is it none of their stinkin' bidness? Or does it become their bidness when his neurological problems disturb their peace?
(By the way, we've avoided talking to him in terms of the "label." He knows he's different and finds some things hard that come easily to others, but we've never sat him down and said, "You have Asperger's and this is what it means." Maybe we should and we intend to later -- but his therapist agrees that now is not the time, yet. -- He was too wound up to have noticed when I whispered it to Mom in Front of Me.)
In retrospect, I wish I had asked E.S. to sit on my lap or something the first time Guy turned around. But, at that time I already had Littlest Brother on my lap -- he had been burying his face in my shoulder at some scary part, I no longer remember what. So I was preoccupied and didn't pay enough attention to the incident until it was too late.
When your oldest child is a special-needs child, and your younger children are still young enough to be needy, whose needs do you drop? You're juggling these 3 little eggs, which one do you let go splat on the floor?
Today at the movies, it was Eldest Son.
As in, thought I'd died and gone to.
So the kids have all decided to do Tae Kwon Do, and the local place has all their little classmates so we went there too and they offered us 3 free trial lessons. They've all had their first free lesson this week.
Eldest Son is in a program for kids 8 & up (Karate for Kids), while Precious Princess and Littlest Brother are in Tiny Tigers (for ages 4 - 6).
You see these little guys in there, holding up their little fists and piping out "ai-YAH!", fierce little scowls on their adorable muppet faces, and it's just about the cutest thing you ever saw!
And they're all hooked. And I think it's gonna be a good thing. (I was a little worried about it, for various reasons, but, I think it's gonna be a good thing.)
Actually, it looks like so much fun, I want to sign up myself!
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So, I'm gradually getting clients. I'm on my sixth one now, and one client gave me repeat business already. Good feedback on the jobs board. Still, it's not reliable enough to be able to hire a regular nanny, even part time. (Because, dear Punkinshell, I only get to hire the babysitter when the hourly rate I'm getting can justify it!)
Most of what I'm writing for pay has to do with business, marketing in particular. And, in doing the research for these pieces, I'm actually getting a lot of ideas for what I need to do to get my own little business off the ground.
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I'm also still working on my fiction. Keep The Dream Alive!!!
I've got to get back to my novel outline. Outlining Is Your Friend. At least, it's mine. Once I've got a good outline, things practically write themselves. It's the getting to a good outline that's the challenge. :-)
...are the last to be shod.
Which explains why I have been neglecting my own poor blog.
I've actually been paid to write!
Not my first love, speculative fiction (sorry D.H.), but still.
As a matter of fact, I've actually been paid to write blog posts.
I'm a professional blogger.
What a weird world.
It's been fun, but after I've pounded out 22 articles on Lean Six Sigma in 5 days, well, just got no juice left for my own blog. (Hi, M.S.! It was fun, and I'll get right on those edits...)
So far I've managed to get really great clients. This week I worked on a fun little script for a series of training videos. (Gosh, I love the Internet! The Internet is a writer's BFF.) And my hourly rate on that job was actually enough to pay the baby-sitter! Woot. I'm really hoping and hoping that this client picks me up again, because I had a blast & it's just about the amount of work I want to do these days.
Honestly, I really think this work suits me. I like working at home (no commute), the researching and writing is fun, and when I can actually get a decent hourly rate it makes me feel like I'm on Cloud Nine. (What does that mean, anyway??? On Cloud Nine??? Maybe I'll Google it.)
So, those of you who know (or are) my family will have realized this a while back, but...
I'm turning into my dad.
That's not a bad thing, just not what I expected out of life. (When I was a kid -- by which I mean, up to and beyond college, in fact into the early days of my marriage and grad school -- I always assumed I would turn into my mom. Over the past few years I've made my peace with the fact that I didn't, haven't, and won't... but it's still a surprise when I realize that I'm turning into my dad instead.)
My dad is a self-employed free-lance writer who sits in his home office typing all day, and nowadays almost never even meets with clients in person. (The Internet, y'know.) I'm so totally turning into him it's not even funny.
But honestly, it does suit. And in a couple of years, when Littlest Brother is in school, I won't even need to pay the baby-sitter, much.
So. Gotta go. Have to write 2 articles for my music blog client, and revise 2 articles for my Lean Six Sigma client.
Toodle-oo.
